Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Tornado-Like Storm Ravages Northern Warren County, New York


North County Gazette
Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:33 UTC
A hot, humid, sunny fall day suddenly turned violent as residents of northern Warren County headed home from work Thursday afternoon.

About 5:30 p.m., a storm from the south brought sudden gusts of wind estimated at 50 to 60 mph, whipping trees, raining pine needles and leaves in Chestertown, snapping off trees, felling some onto power lines and uprooting others. Spurts of heavy rain fell but as suddenly as it came, the storm was over, leaving over 4,000 National Grid customers without power in the county.
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X

Calif. poisons lake to kill off pike


UPI
Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:38 UTC
PORTOLA, Calif.- California wildlife officials dumped 16,000 gallons of a fish poison into a northern Sierra reservoir to kill off the invasive northern pike.
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Bizarro Earth

UK Bluetongue farm family 'hopeful'


BBC
Mon, 24 Sep 2007 22:29 UTC
The family running a Suffolk farm hit by the UK's first case of bluetongue disease say they are "hopeful" about their future.

©AFP
Police have closed the road leading to the farm.

The insect-borne virus, which has killed livestock across Europe, was found in a Highland cow at the Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm, near Ipswich.
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Magnify

The possible effects of bluetongue disease in Britain


BBC
Sun, 23 Sep 2007 22:21 UTC
Bluetongue is a mysterious disease, with no suitable vaccine, but there are still reasons for optimism for British farmers, despite the case at a Suffolk farm.

If bluetongue were to take hold in Britain it would change the landscape.



©SPL
The virus is of the same type as northern Europe suffers.

Anywhere which has hills dotted with sheep would be devastated. The strain of the disease found at a rare breeds farm in Suffolk has come from northern Europe.
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Bizarro Earth

Bluetongue disease forces restrictions on transport of sheep in eastern Montana

Susan Gallagher
AP
Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:27 UTC
A potentially fatal sheep disease spread by gnats has triggered a quarantine in eastern Montana, preventing ranchers from moving their animals at a time of year when lambs are shipped out, often to Colorado feedlots.

State veterinarian Marty Zaluski's order this week prohibits the transportation of sheep from 16 of Montana's 56 counties. The disease, bluetongue, has been confirmed in tests from eight flocks in six counties, said Lisa Schmidt, spokeswoman for the Montana Department of Livestock.
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Bizarro Earth

Bluetongue disease claims hundreds of deer, antelope in Eastern Montana

Michael Babcock
Great Falls Tribune
Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:18 UTC
Bluetongue, a disease that causes animals to bleed to death internally, is hitting antelope and white-tailed deer in southeastern Montana.

Fish, Wildlife & Parks officials say the disease, which is spread by a biting gnat, has been found in antelope in the Melstone-Sumatra-Ingomar area and white-tailed deer along the Yellowstone River.
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Cloud Lightning

Deluge closes roads in Nevada

Mark Waite
Pahrump Valley Times
Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:03 UTC
The biggest one-day deluge to hit Pahrump in years caused washouts in numerous locations, with a few streets still closed this week.

National Weather Service observer Ren Glover reported 2.7 inches Friday, which is the official total. That brings the yearly rainfall total to 3.15 inches, almost up to the 3.64-inch average annual rainfall for Pahrump through Sept. 30.

©Mark Waite / PVT
The rain apparently caused a significant sinkholes that closed Parkridge Avenue off Hacienda Street.
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Cloud Lightning

Tropical Storm Lorenzo to hit Mexico as hurricane


Reuters
Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:27 UTC
Tropical Storm Lorenzo, forecast to become a hurricane before slamming into Mexico, dumped heavy rain on the country's Gulf coast on Thursday but was unlikely to affect oil production.

Lorenzo will probably make landfall in the early hours of on Friday in the coffee-growing state of Veracruz. It had wind speeds of near 70 mph (110 kph), with higher gusts.

©TSR
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Star

Are sunspots prime suspects in global warming?

Peter N. Spotts
Christian Science Monitor
Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:30 UTC
It's a modern-day climate scuffle William Herschel would recognize. He should. He helped trigger it.

In 1801, the eminent British astron­­omer reported that when sunspots dotted the sun's surface, grain prices fell. When sunspots waned, prices rose.

He suggested that shifts in grain prices were a stand-in for shifts in climate. Large numbers of sunspots led to a warmer sun, he reasoned. With more warmth reaching Earth, crop yields would increase, depressing grain prices.

With that, a 200-year hunt began for links between shifts in the sun's output and changes in climate.
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Bomb

Flashback Is Earth and the solar system entering a nearby interstellar cloud?

Vidal-Madjar, A.; Laurent, C.; Bruston, P.; Audouze, J.
Astrophysical Journal, Part 1, vol. 223, July 15, 1978
Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:23 UTC
It is suggested that the postulated interstellar cloud should encounter the solar system at some unspecified time in the 'near' future and might have a drastic influence on terrestrial climate in the next 10,000 years.
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